There are no chairs. Liquidators removed them because they don't want customers to linger.

"It's like the Titanic," Wilzig sighs, gazing up at the ever-shrinking inventory of books. "We're going down."

Eleven years ago, Wilzig landed two job offers: one from Borders Books, another from Crate & Barrel. The artist and mother - newly divorced - loved books and only liked furniture, so it was an easy choice.

We all know how this story ends.

This is Wilzig's final week at the Upper Kirby bookstore, one of the remaining 399 Borders to shut its doors since the company began liquidating in July, five months after filing for bankruptcy protection. Her store - the only Borders inside the Loop - closes Sunday.

Some might say it's karma that a big box chain sank while Houston's handful of independent booksellers remain afloat. Wilzig, 54, has other things on her mind.

"My regulars, they're devastated," Wilzing says.

The Ann Arbor-based Borders opened its first store in 1971 and operated 1,200 at its peak. Along with Barnes & Noble, Borders muscled countless mom-and-pop bookshops out of business, offering bigger spaces with comfy chairs and cafes.

But as readers began to buy books online and, later, download print materials onto e-readers, massive bookstores lost some of their allure. Borders outsourced online book sales to Amazon years ago, throwing away potential profits. And although Borders did produce an e-reader - Kobo, anyone? - it never competed with the Kindle, iPad or Nook.

All Borders will close by the end of the month. The Kirby store will be the last to close in the area.

"They're picking at the carcass of my store," says David A. Jones, local attorney and co-host of Channel 8's Red, White and Blue.

Jones used the Borders on Kirby as a satellite office for years.

"I'd meet clients and I'd frequently have documents signed there," he says.

Wilzig played a part in how welcome Jones felt.

"I'd be upstairs and she'd talk to me from downstairs," he says.

No raise in three years

The final weeks, Wilzig says, have been brutal.

"I'm very loyal," she says, the bling-covered ID around her neck underscoring this point. "I feel like this is my store. I was working here before the paint was dry."

Wilzig makes $8.42 an hour as a cashier/bookseller and hasn't had a raise in three years. She's one of 10,700 Borders employees losing their jobs.

For her, the job has always been about connecting. A social work major at San Francisco State University and, later, an assemblage artist, Wilzig has spent a lot of time at Borders trying to figure out her customers. She knows who's been dumped or left at the altar by the titles they carry to the register. Often, she helps them. Sometimes, they return to thank her.

In late August, Wilzig walked the stacks, long hair wafting behind her as she surveyed the new merchandise.

"A lot of stuff you see here has nothing to do with Borders," she explains. "It's the liquidator's stuff."

In-house, they call it "augment" - the plastic purses, blankets, glitter eye-shadow and other stuff that has begun to take the place of books. The store looks like a garage sale that had gone on for too long.

"We're not even trying to alphabetize anymore," Wilzig says.

'A very long book'

Now in its final days, the Borders on Kirby is hauntingly quiet. Upstairs is a desert, with printers piled on the floor and a few shelves stocked with random titles. The funeral has begun.

A few weeks ago, a Borders employee in Michigan filed a lawsuit against the company for its failure to give employees 60 days notice. On the same day, the bookseller sought permission to pay severance to a few senior managers.

Meanwhile, Wilzig is taking her last walks through the store, eating her last lunch on the balcony.